“I’m Absolutely Keeping the Graphic Novel’s Ending”

Zack Snyder talks Watchmen in this month’s Starlog magazine

Hardcore Watchmen fans have been waiting to hear this for a long time: Zack’s keeping the ending.

Yes, he said it. At least he was quoted as saying that in the latest issue of Starlog magazine.

He actually had quite a bit to say in the four page article - most of which will have all of the die hard Watchmen fans screaming “Amen!”

I’m sticking to the hard edge and all of the bickering that’s in Watchmen. If you don’t do that, you shouldn’t do the film at all. The reason why is that the movie works as an answer to what’s out there. It did that as a graphic novel, and it needs to do that as a film. If you want to take out the edgy bits, then don’t bother making it. Never mind!

“But the ending!” That's what all the fans are saying right now. “He’s really keeping it? He’s going to be faithful to Alan Moore’s ending? But every leaked script we’ve seen has butchered it! Seriously, is he really going to keep it?”

What happened [when previous filmmakers tried to put the graphic novel into] script form was that everyone tried to figure out, ‘How do I get this guy over here and that guy over there?’ They were only trying to get the mystery, the story, to work, where as my concern is the other stuff, the philosophy of it.

Other interesting tidbits from the article include the revelation that Dr. Manhattan would be “a full 3-D CG character” with actor Billy Cruddup’s face and performance scan, á la, Davy Jones form Pirates of the Caribbean, and that Snyder himself will have a cameo as an army grunt or a SWAT cop. What about the Black Freighter subplot? “We’re working on that,” Snyder said. “We’re trying to get the money to keep that in.”

I'm going to make a movie that I want to see. I honestly believe people are tired of Hollywood’s watered-down films. It’s refreshing to see a hard movie.

For a ton of more insights from Zack Snyder on his upcoming movie adaptation of Watchmen, you can download the article from the November 2007 issue of Starlog magazine.